


Substitute

by Odamaki



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Confused John, Friendship, Gen, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Post HLV, Pre-Airfield scene, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 20:45:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3869200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odamaki/pseuds/Odamaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> It's the nurse who has the luxury of being able to walk without needing to watch her feet, and the nurse who spots the figure at the gate first. </i><br/><i>She puts her hand on his elbow. “Sir?” </i><br/><i>Sholto looks, heart in his mouth for a moment before he recognizes the man and it slithers into the pit of his stomach instead. Something must have gone wrong. </i><br/><i>“Watson?” </i><br/>Prompt-fic done as a giveaway prize for Mmmaxi :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Substitute

**Author's Note:**

> (I do not give permission to repost, reproduce or archive this fanfic in part or in it's entirety to any other website except with prior written consent provided by myself, nor any profit be made from any of these works under any circumstances whatsoever.)

Sholto walks every day around the perimeters of his own property. Partly it’s left over from habit. He needs to walk; walking is what he did as a soldier. Partly it slots into his ongoing regime of physical and mental therapy- fresh air and stretching. Bleakly, he finds that his main motivation is paranoia; he has to see for himself that he’s safe behind his big brick walls and cast iron gates. 

His nurse, whichever one he has on hire at that moment, usually goes with him in case of a slip or a fall. It’s not really part of their duties, but he’s yet to find one who will look him dead in the eye and point blank refuse to walk with him. He supposes on some level, they find the house as gloomy and the grounds as refreshing as he does. 

At any rate, it's the nurse who has the luxury of being able to walk without needing to watch her feet, and the nurse who spots the figure at the gate first. 

She puts her hand on his elbow. “Sir?” 

Sholto looks, heart in his mouth for a moment before he recognizes the man and it slithers into the pit of his stomach instead. Something must have gone wrong. 

“Watson?” 

The man stands, a bit stiff from sitting. The old rucksack at his heels is dog-eared and familiar. John looks at Sholto on the other side of the gate and the moor stretching out behind him makes him look small. 

“I should have called,” John apologises. 

“I’d have sent someone to pick you up,” Sholto agrees but John shakes his head. 

“Needed the walk.” 

Needed the breathing space and the exertion, Sholto translates. He reaches over and punches in the key code for the gates, opening them just enough for John to slip through before they clang shut again. 

“Louise, would you go ahead back to the house and let them know we have a guest?” He asks the nurse and then before she can voice any concern adds, “It’s alright; John will walk with me. He’s a doctor.”

She takes this at face value; new people come and go all the time, who’s to say he hasn’t hired a doctor now, and turns to take the direct route back to the lodge. 

“How are you?” John asks, concerned. 

“I’m fine,” Sholto says, a touch curt. “Nothing but the same old troubles.” 

John waits, apparently expecting to be asked what he’s doing there but Sholto isn’t ready to discuss that yet. 

“This way,” he says, instead, and directs John around to complete his perimeter checks for the day. 

\---

He’s always appreciated John Watson’s understanding of silence. It’s not that he’s shy or reserved or taciturn; all things Sholto knows he himself has exhibited throughout his life; John simply doesn’t need noise the way other people do. They say little on the walk and scarcely any more over the meal rushed together for them by the cook. 

John compliments his house, Sholto shrugs it off as a pretty cage. 

Finally, when they’re ensconced by the fire and John has a drink in his hand, Sholto asks him. He himself is comfortable on a cocktail of legal medications, and they’ve run out of small talk to dance around on. 

“Have you left?” He doesn’t add a pronoun; there are parts of John Watson he has long since presumed to know better than the man himself does, yet even now he won’t insult the man by rubbing his face in it. 

John looks at his own hands in his lap. 

“No, not exactly,” he says slowly. “I just… needed a break.”

“And Mary?” Sholto ventures. 

“In our house. Healthy. I don't really know.” John rubs at his jaw; not wholly clean-shaven for once. “Pregnant.” 

There’s a noticeable lack of vitriol in his tone, he just sounds lost and worn out. “I said I’d stay with her, but…” 

The quiet trickles back and forth between them. The fire dances hazy in the corner of his vision as Sholto watches John, and John watches the flames. 

Eventually Sholto asks “And Holmes?”

John takes a hard swallow of liquor and this time emotion does move in his face. His tone remains matter of fact when he reports:

“In prison. They’re sending him away.” 

“You’re angry,” Sholto says, despite his surprise at the news. 

“Of course I’m fucking angry,” John presses his lips hard into a line and shakes his head. He lowers his voice and mutters, “He said he’d be there.”

In those words, Sholto hears the old resentments and fears and shames. And naturally, it explains why John has come here, because this is where Sholto had said he’d be, and here he is and always will be. Sholto breathes out a long sigh and wishes he were still allowed to drink. 

A lot of his time in the army had felt a bit like being a substitute for something for the new recruits. He was a substitute for the real thing that they’d encounter over seas- a tamed and experimental version of combat and its hierarchies and chaos and disciplines…when it didn’t go horribly wrong. He’d been a substitute role model for what they wanted them to be before they went off to war and found or destroyed or became their own role models. A substitute employer to some; their temporary ‘boss’ or a substitute confidant to those who didn't have any, or the courage to make them with their peers. 

Then for some souls it seemed to go deeper. A substitute for the love and pride and reliability they’d looked for in lovers or brothers or parents and never been able to find until as a matter of duty he’d stepped into their lives. 

He’d never been able to quite figure out which one of those- lover or brother or father- John had intimated from him, but then he’d never been sure if John understood it himself; just that hurting ball of need that on and off Sholto had been able to salve. 

“Stay as long as you want,” he offers instead of prying. “And if you need to leave and then want to come back, that’s fine. There’s always a room for you here, John.” 

He doesn't want to make this emotional, for either of them, so Sholto rises and leaves the matter there. The knuckles of his dead hand brush John’s arm as he passes his chair. “I’ll make sure there’s something for breakfast,” he adds, “I usually skip it.”

“Goodnight,” John says, and because he knows Sholto won’t feel it otherwise, he puts a hand on his side instead of his arm. “And… thank you.” John looks at him with gratitude, not just for the offer but for the understanding too, and Sholto can’t help but feel a wash of tenderness for him. 

“Goodnight,” Sholto says and thinks, privately, that he’d give up an eye for a better arm and a chance to punch John Watson’s real father until his teeth fell out. 

\---

Sholto remembers John’s Passing Out at his Sovereign’s Parade at Sandhurst. The second one where he’d come out as an actual soldier, not just a medic in the RAMC. He’d been impressive throughout training, with the experience you’d expect for someone who’d seen some service, but the authority of command and the ability to garner respect and cooperation from his peers, even when they didn’t particularly like him. 

“He’s mimicking you,” the other Major had commented, amused. “Sometimes I close my eyes and I have to ask myself who that is, barking orders, is that James or little Johnny.” 

Sholto had chuckled. “He’ll be good,” he’d promised. “He’s decisive and he’s got compassion. He’ll be a good captain in a few years.” 

“We’ll stick him on your job eventually,” the other Major had laughed. 

“Would you consider him for the Sword?” Sholto had asked. Three prizes were given each passing out; John only stood a chance for one of them. 

The other Major had considered. “He’s worth nominating,” he’d agreed. “Failing that, we’ll think of something. Front and centre, maybe.” 

John had not won the Sword, but he had performed flawlessly anyway. Sholto hadn’t considered much more than that until after, when the new graduates had begun to drift off to socialize with family at the Commissioning Ball and John had been left stood aloof. 

Sholto hadn’t asked why. He knew enough of his soldier’s backgrounds by paperwork to know that some of them came from less than ideal homes. It saddened him though; this man with such honours and potential and no one had come to wish him well. So he’d substituted. It hadn’t been difficult. 

“Well done, Watson.” 

“Major Sholto.”

“James, please. We’re not sticking stripes on you till midnight, and I’m off duty. Call me James.”

“James,” John had repeated, as though it were a strange but not unpleasant flavour in his mouth. “Then call me John.” 

“Gladly. Come and have a drink.” 

He’d brought him over and kept him with the officers who’d already earned their commission, and John had stuck at his elbow and absolutely lit up to be recognized as someone who belonged there. 

“You’ll do yourself proud,” Sholto had told him towards the end of the evening, “Second Lieutenant Watson.” John had touched the new stripes on his uniform and smiled a strange, heart-felt little smile. 

“I intend to try,” he had said. “And I’m not going to fail.”

“Well,” Sholto had said, caving to the sentiment of a late hour and too much drink. “I think you already look splendid.” 

John had cleared his throat, pink with delight and whiskey and cheeked him back.

“I’d look better in your uniform.” 

‘You little devil,’ Sholto had thought, fondly. ‘I won’t forget that.’

\---

John is on the phone, whereby he is meant to be explaining himself to Mary, yet is refusing to say much of anything at all. 

“I’m fine,” he mutters sulkily. “I know.” 

He hangs up after a conversation of mere minutes and then knuckles his fists against the closed lid of the piano. 

“What are you going to do?” Sholto asks from the doorway. John flinches. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew I was here.” 

“It’s fine.” John ticks tension through his jaw and then sniffs hard like he can take in new resolve from the mere air of the room. “I’ll have to go back. I need to… he leaves on Sunday.” 

“Do you know where to?”

John shakes his head. 

“How long?” 

John shakes his head, more cynically. 

Sholto thinks of all those goodbyes he’s wished to men he hasn’t been able to say would come home again; and he’d known where and for how long and how to contact them if he’d wanted to. 

“My sympathies,” he says before the funeral connotations occur to him. He sits heavily on the piano bench beside him. 

“God help me, I’m going to be a father,” John says out of the blue. “How? What do I do?”

“You said the same thing, if I recall, about being in the army. What you do is you go ahead; one day at a time. And you do the right thing, until it doesn’t work, and then you do something else, and you try to keep doing yourself proud.” It’s the only advice Sholto’s ever had for him. It’s not the best advice, he knows; it’s full of flaws, but John needs to hear something even if it’s bullshit. 

“For what it’s worth,” Sholto adds more softly, “I’m still proud of you, John Watson. And I‘ve never once thought less of a man who admitted that he was afraid.” 

“I don’t want to do this on my own,” John says. “He’s not going to come back this time.”

Sholto’s on the wrong side; he can’t lift his dead arm to place it on John’s shoulder, so instead he twists and grips his chest with his good hand. John lets his head fall forward with a heavy thump against Sholto’s collar bone. 

“Go and see him pass out,” Sholto says in his ear. “Or I think you’ll regret it more. I think that’s your priority. Or are things terribly broken with Mary?” 

“Mary will last till Sunday, at least,” John admits, leaning back. “Why did you say ‘pass out’?” 

“Force of habit,” Sholto lies. “But somebody should be there, and I would be very much surprised if he didn’t look for you.” 

“Do you think he would?” 

“I know it,” Sholto says, getting up. “And if he doesn’t, he’s a bloody fool. You’re worth looking for, John.” 

\---

John leaves on the Friday, insisting on walking the lonely miles back to the station. 

“Thanks,” he says at the gate, “For letting me just… Thank you.”

“If you ever need to, come again. Come if you don’t need to. I meant it when I said you were always welcome here.” 

John extends a hand, Sholto shakes it; Major, old colleague, substitute lover, father and friend. 

“All the best, John. I hope it works out.” 

“You too,” John says, with sudden emphasis, like he’s seen a break in the fog of his own self-misery. “Keep in touch.” 

“Safe trip, John,” Sholto says, and closes the door before he compromises himself. 

He doesn’t allow himself to watch John vanish over the moor, though he permits himself a glance from the upstairs window, but as far as he can track the dull black of John’s waterproof jacket, he’s headed in the right direction. The maid passes him on the landing, arms full of sheets. 

“Put them back on the bed, when they’re washed,” Sholto says, “And ask Gemma to put whiskey on the shopping order.” 

“Sir?”

Sholto shrugs. It’s a big empty house where he has little to do but walk the perimeter every day. But he’s here, where he said he’d be, and he intends- if he can’t do more- to at least be reliable.

**Author's Note:**

> Passing out at Sandhurst sounds like a mass swooning of soldiers but its actually their graduation ceremony. It's also called the Sovereigns Parade. I sorry, I only know what I have gleaned from Google. Basically 3-4 prizes are awarded at it; one for the 'valedictorian' which is the Queen's award, and is for whoever got the highest marks overall. One is the overseas sword which is given, perhaps predictably, to non-British soldiers who have trained at Sandhurst, and the last is the Sword of Honour (?), which is given to the most promising candidate nominated by the trainers. 
> 
> Who is in love with whom, and how much and what sort of love, I have left open to interpretation, but if it sways your reading, let me tell you that my autocorrect keeps trying to make me write angsty sentences about John and a shallot. Jonion 5eva, amirite?


End file.
